BOO KS
105
intelligence may not be the cure-all for the troubles of the individual or
the turmoil in society, as a naive pragmatism once thought it would
be; nor is it without difficulties if the goal be personal happiness or
salvation; but it's worth being reminded, as the tide is turning, that
a free intelligence has a legitimate function in society over and above
its technical application; and that, though it may be predominantly cri–
tical and destructive, it is generally quite harmless, which is more than
one can say for all the popular forms of anti-intellectualism.
Musil also serves as an interesting reminder of some of the personal
difficulties besetting an intellectual like Ulrich. To belong nowhere, to
be incapable of committing oneself is not only to be isolated and alien–
ated from society; it is also an unhappy, personal burden; for a great
many problems of life are not solved by thinking, but by acting. Now
a man without qualities is, as Musil realized, paradoxically enough also
a man possessing all qualities. There is no position he cannot theoretically
defend, none in which he cannot see some partial truth; hence, there
is none with which he might not be identified or identify himself. Thus
Ulrich longs at times to be relieved from the elusiveness and pluralistic
ambiguity of thinking about problems the solution of which can only be
found in the "unequivocation and finality of action."
There is, however, one ambiguity, or dilemma, which Musil singled
out as crucial and to which he returned constantly throughout his work
in search of a solution. The dilemma arises as follows: The function
of the intellect is to think clearly and precisely. This is the way a scien–
tist tries to think when engaged in experimental research aiming at a
truthful description of certain aspects of the objective world. What we
call the logic of science sets the conditions for this inquiry into meaning
and truth. Musil acknowledged this discipline of the mind-just as he
practiced a highly exaggerated form of physical discipline for his body.
It is this logical clarity and precision, ruthless and uncompromising,
which is the function of the intellect in search of truth among the
falsehoods of the world; and science, or a scientifically trained mind, is
an indispensable prerequisite for exercising this function.
Now this quest for clarity and precision, which cannot be abdicated
by the intellect without self-betrayal, encounters formidable and appar–
ently insuperable obstacles in certain areas of life. Musil encountered
them when he turned from positivism to art and literature, from the
precise logic of the science
descriptive
of an objective reality to the
elusive "logic of the soul" (as he called it)
expressive
of man's inner
world of dreams, fantasies, feelings, and values. In other words, there
seem to be aspects of life, frightfully significant in terms of human exist-
